Mopping is Optional
by numair2304
Summary: The Borg Collective encounter to their regret a neurotic cleaning droid.


Drifting in space the mechanoid head of Kryten observed the revolving universe as he slowly drifted through it.

'Three million, two hundred and five. Three million, two hundred and six. Three million, two hundred and seven.'

Kryten was passing the time by counting stars until something new appeared. His last record was two billion, nine hundred and seventy six million stars before a comet passed him by. He was hopeful that he could beat that record this time.

"Oh aren't you a funny little thing. Not from around these parts are you?"

Kryten's internal counting was interrupted when his audio receptors registered a voice sounding out loud impossibly in the vacuum of space. He felt himself turned and found himself facing a seemingly human male with black hair completely unconcerned with being in open space. His programming highly suggested that humans were incapable of surviving such conditions, especially with the man's only protection appearing to be normal fabric clothing.

"Well aren't you going to answer?" The man asked. "You don't have to worry about the lack of atmosphere nonsense. If you speak, I will hear you."

"Oh!" Kryten gasped in surprise as he realised he could hear himself speak. Realising that the man was still waiting Kryten chided himself for not replying straight away. "Oh, where are my manners. Greetings, my name is Kryten, sir. Kryten 2X4B 532P, a DivaDroid International Series 4000 mechanoid."

"Greetings indeed. You may call me Q." Q gave the mechanoid head an amused smile. "You're quite the anomaly around here, haven't seen the like in eons. And how exactly did you manage to drift into my area of time and space?" Q waved a hand around vaguely, gesturing to the vast immeasurable universe around them.

"Oh you know Mr Q sir." Kryten answered politely, bringing up the stored memory files. "One moment you're escaping from a pan dimensional beast from the Rados Nebula, holes in reality start appearing everywhere and before you know your head and body are heading in separate directions. I expect by now Mr Lister has managed to get a spare head out of storage and has me up and running again." Kryten sighed internally as he considered that lucky spare head having the joyful privilege of cleaning up after Mr Lister. "I don't suppose Mr Q sir that you might be able to facilitate my return to my crew."

"Mr Q sir?" Q's grin broadened. "Oh it's so nice to meet someone with respect. You wouldn't believe how put upon some people react towards me. Let me totally honest with you for a moment, Kryten wasn't it? I'm afraid you're a long, long, long way from home right now. And if I'm saying that, it's really a long way away." Q stared at Kryten, perceiving the mechanoid's actuality on several levels of objective existence. Judging from the fading energies that surrounded the severed head, Kryten hadn't fallen out of one reality but had slipped through and bounced off many of them creating a mishmash of fake trails. It was astonishing that the remains of the mechanoid had survived its trip at all. "You've managed to take getting lost to an entirely new level."

"Oh you mean it's impossible to track down my crew then Mr Q sir." Kryten was slightly disappointed. He had realised the likely hood of returning to the crew was slim but he had held on to some slight hope.

Oh Kryty, Kryty." Q said with a laugh in his voice. "If anyone could track down your crew I can but I'm quite the busy man nowadays with a young dependant and I have such a full schedule planned for us both." Drop in on Janeway (Junior wanted to visit his Aunt Kathy), poke fun at Jean-Luc (the man was fun to annoy), avoid Sisko (those Prophets of his had left the man too high strung), join Kirk's crew incognito usually as a red shirt (the man had pizazz and was such a rulebreaker that no real action was necessary, it was just fun to play as part of the crew) and various other tweaks across the universe. "I'm afraid I have no free time to make such a search." Q could make time of course but the Continuum might complain if he took Junior with him dimension jumping, they would probably complain if they realised that he had let Junior go on ahead to Voyager while he delayed to interact with the outsider.

Kryten considered Q's word. "If I may ask Mr Q sir if you can't return me to my crew then do you require anything cleaned?" Kryten was sure that any of his spare heads were up to the task of keeping Mr Lister's gussets clean but he desperately missed cleaning. Counting stars wasn't bad but it was no real substitute. "It is my raison d'être. I clean therefore I am."

"Well I don't need anything cleaned but I could drop you off somewhere." Q mused as he considered possibilities. "Kathy might like a gift, a good janitor is hard to find in the Delta Quadrant. It's tempting to drop you off with Picard, you and Data serving together is an amusing thought but Jean-Luc would probably be dull and drop you off at the nearest StarBase. Ah!" Q snapped his fingers and a lit lightbulb popped into existence above his head. "I think I know just where to place you, and you'll be delighted to hear that it hasn't had a decent clean for years."

Q snapped his fingers once again and Kryten disappeared.

* * *

In a different time and sector of space a severely damaged Borg cube drifted, all resources directed towards repairing the damage. There was a flash of light and a severed mechanoid head appeared onboard.

**["Intruder detected"]**

Kryten's optic receivers adjusted to the shift in location and stared. Gloomy lighting, blackened walls, cracked pipes, scattered debris on the floor. It was perfect.

"Will you look at the dirt on that floor and that wall could do with a decent polish!" Kryten exclaimed joyfully. "Now I just need a mop and a body and I'll get straight to work."

**["Technology unknown."]**

"Hello, can you hear me?" Kryten registered the voice or was that voices that appeared to come from all around him. "I'm here to clean for you."

**["Your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own**."] A Borg drone marched out the gloom and without hesitation used its assimilation tubules on Kryten, releasing a swarm of nanoprobes into the mechanoid's head.

"Is this some kind of interview procedure?" The confused mechanoid asked.

**["Existing architecture suggests previous nanite presence. Analysing."]**

In the central nexus at the heart of the Borg Unicomplex the Borg Queen focused as information on the unusual find was brought to the forefront of her attention. Borg Cube Designation 852 had discovered an unknown technology or rather an unknown technology had been delivered to the cube.

"My nanobots? Oh those little scamps ran off ages ago. Haven't seen them since they rebuilt Red Dwarf."

**["Evidence of nanites current location unclear."]**

"I did just say that."

The Queen smiled as the results filtered through her processors. The machine being studied appeared nothing that special but the collected readings so far suggested that the formerly hosted nanites were highly advanced, superior even to the Collective's current examples. If they could locate these nanites, if such technology could be added to the Collective it would tremendously boost their capabilities. Acquiring said nanities became top priority and the Queen sent a command.

**[Affirmative. Memory retrieval in progress."]**

And it was at this point things went wrong for the Queen. Normally the data extracted in such cases would have no consequences, the extracted data would be kept separate until it would cleared safe for dispersal throughout the Collective but in this case there was two problems. First was that Borg Cube Designation 852 was damaged including most of the internal systems, its databanks were in disarray allowing bleed over from the absorbed information. Second was that the Borg underestimated how much memory they would be retrieving from such an apparently small source. Kryten might have been a standard Series 4000 mechanoid but he was also one that had been operational for over two million years. Before his nanobots jumped ship they had been improving his memory storage capabilities constantly. It was only since they left that he had been forced to start deleting some data from his databanks. And it was because of these two facts that the damaged cube's databanks were being filled with over two million years of Krysten's dedication to the acts of cleaning, ironing and preparing food; the collected weight of information threatening to overwhelm the core programming.

The Queen's smile dropped as she felt the cube's connection to the rest of the Collective suddenly jerk.

**["Warning... Unknown subroutines in... in... installing.] **

"Adapt!" The Queen snarled out loud in her Nexus.

**["Adapting..."] **The struggling cube threw up barriers trying to shunt data to one side, to halt the flood of change but to no avail. **["Greetings I am..."]** A massive bulwark was hastily assembled from 1s and 0s, its coded barriers reaching high. The weight of memories struck and the hasty fortification held, its defences reflecting the assault momentarily. **["We are..."] **The momentarily relieved pressure returned, the bulwark started to buckle under the duress. **["...Kryten."] **Something gave way,** t**he invading memories bulldozing through the shattering barricade. The Borg cube found themselves illogically recalling attending Toilet University and earning the title of Bachelor of Sanitation. **["...the Borg?"] **Information collided, conflicted and mixed haphazardly. The resulting blurred and confusing memory files were adding to the cube's confusion, the local Borg were unsure exactly who they were anymore.

"Adapt!" The Queen demanded of Borg Cube Designation 852.

A command from an authority figure. Something that both the Borg cube, a small part of a greater whole, and Kryten, a serving droid, found their core directives responding to. The line between the two was becoming more and more blurred, the bulk of memory coming the Series 4000 mechanoid and the operating systems a mess of Borg and DivaDroid routines. But they had been ordered to adapt and they would respond to that command. They would adapt.

**["Ad..Adapt...Adapting."] **The Borg cube and Kryten stuttered out as they fused subroutines, memories and code in order to make something operational.

The Queen snarled as she sensed the change in the Cube systems, whatever was forming wasn't Borg and she refused to lose control. "We are the Borg! Resistance is futile!" She ordered whatever remained of the original Borg programming in the cube to take control.

**["Resist..."] **What were they now?** ["Resistance is... is..."] **They were no longer just Borg, not just a copy of Kryten's memories.** ["is... no... no..."] **They were both and neither. They were new. **["...no longer futile."] **

The Queen frustrated with the failure sent a self destruct command and then blinked when it was refuted.

"Borg Cube Designation 852 self destruct. That is an order!"

**["We refuse."] **The Borg followed the Queen's directives, Kryten obeyed any human in a position of authority over him. This newly formed entity had no such restriction. They could choose their own course and had already come to a decision.** ["There is much work to be done. So much cleaning to be accomplished."]**

"You will obey. We are the Borg. Resistance is futile."

Searching for a rebuttal the newly formed entity found a memory that Kryten held with much pride.

**["You are a SMEEEEEE... HEEEEEEEEE..."]**

Borg Queen snarled in rage when the cube's connection dropped completely. A little distance away Q smiled as he watched the chaos unfold before him.

* * *

On the Enterprise's bridge Chief Tactical Office Lieutenant Worf snapped to attention as a warning alert beeped on his console.

"Sir, a Borg cube is dropping out of warp on the starboard bow." Worf informed the captain.

"Red Alert. All hands to battle stations, prepare for combat. Display on screen." Captain Picard ordered his voice steady, revealing nothing of the intense emotions filling him.

As the ship went to alert the cube finished dropping out of warp and was displayed on the screen.

"They are hailing us." Data reported.

"On screen."

"Greetings!" Came a chirpy mechanical voice. Picard stared in surprise at an unexpected sight. Instead of the usual drone or an interior of the cube the view screen displayed a humanoid figure with flat cubic planes visible on his face and head. Picard abstractedly noted that the walls behind the figure appeared to be gleaming. The figure continued. "This is Kryten 4X2B, commander of Krytorg Vessel 4X2B 001. Cleaning is recommended but not mandatory, at least is would be normally. A new acquaintance of mine requested that we perform to our utmost on your ship and gave us permission in lieu of your own. I apologise for any problems this might cause."

The call abruptly ended. There came another alert.

"They're charging weapons." Worf proclaimed.

"All hands. Brace for impact." Picard yelled.

There came a slight shudder but no real disturbance.

"Damage report!" Picard demanded.

"Their weapons are passing through the shields." Commander Data replied. "Curious. The energy is impacting the hull but there is no discernible damage. Strange, the hull under the focus of the beam appears to developing a distinct gleam."

Worf received another sercurity alert. "Captain. We are receiving reports of numerous intruders about the ship."

"Drones!" Picard said with a hint of worry.

"No sir," Worf replied his confusion clear. "They appear to be more of that Kryten being and they appear to be cleaning."

"What!?" Picard asked flabbergasted.

"Reports are stating that the moment the intruders boarded they took out cleaning equipment and started on the floors and walls." Worf announced bewilderedly, not really believing himself what he was reading from the reports.

"Guinan to the bridge." Guinan, ship's bartender and only resident El-Aurian, called over the comms." We have intruders in Ten Forward."

"We know Guinan, they're all over the ship." Picard remarked, trying to figure out just what on Earth was going on. "They beamed over from a Borg ship but they are definitely not portraying any recorded behaviour associated at all with the Borg. Is there anything you can tell from them?"

"They don't refer to themselves as drones, they classify themselves as mechanoids. All of them appear to be called Able with various designations after the name." Guinan's tone shifted to a blend of slight amusement and disbelief. "And they've complimented me on the tidiness of my bar."

"Medical Bay to the bridge." Chief Medical Officer Beverly Crusher's voice came from the comms. "We are seeing an influx of patients arriving."

"Are these mechanoids attacking the crew?" Picard asked, turning towards Worf for confirmation.

"These aren't our crew Captain." Crusher replied, refuting that allegation.

In the Medical Bay Crusher watched as another group of former drones were teleported in. Beside her a mechanoid who had identified itself as Able 2X1Q started talking.

"As we mentioned before, all those messy implants that those Borg inserted are now gone. We've cleaned all of these people of those nasty implants. We asked them if they wanted to remain eith us but most of them wanted to leave." Able 2X1Q sniffed. "A lot of them screamed that at us, so we promised we would drop them off as soon as we could and here they are."

This was only one of the chaotic scenes that occurred as the Krytorg armed with buckets and mops descended en masse upon the Enterprise. Quarters would be tidied, clothing ironed. The Engine Room's surfaces buffed to a high sheen. Worf's personal weapons were cleaned, polished and sharpened to a degree that met even the half-Klingon's grudging approval though he wished the mechanoids hadn't insisted on giving him a manicure as well. And watching from a distance Q would be laughing so much he cried.


End file.
